Web development is very exciting. There’s nothing like the feeling you have afteryou place your first dynamic web site online, and see your little toy in actionwhile other people are actually using it!Web development with ASP.NET is particularly exciting. If you’ve never createda dynamic web site before, I’m sure you’ll fall in love with this area of web development.If you’ve worked with other server-side technologies, I expect you’ll bea little shocked by the differences.ASP.NET really is a unique technology, and it provides new and extremely efficientways to create web applications using the programming language with whichyou feel most comfortable. Though it can take some time to learn, ASP.NET issimple to use. Whether you want to create simple web forms, or feature-richshopping carts, or even complex enterprise applications, ASP.NET can help youdo it. All the tools you’ll need to get up and running are immediately availableand easy to install, and require very little initial configuration.This book will be your gentle introduction to the wonderful world of ASP.NET,teaching you the foundations step by step. First, you’ll learn the theory; then,you’ll put it in practice as we work through practical exercises together. Todemonstrate some of the more complex functionality, and to put the theory intoa cohesive, realistic context, we’ll develop a project through the course of thisbook. The project—an intranet site for a company named Dorknozzle—will allowus to see the many components of .NET in action, and to understand throughpractice exactly how .NET works in the real world.We hope you’ll find reading this book an enjoyable experience that will significantlyhelp you with your future web development projects!